


Lethe

by IshaRen



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Hux just wants to be loved, Nice Hux, Numbers are hard, Prisoner Hux, Rey has a secret, Reyux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-23 21:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9677567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IshaRen/pseuds/IshaRen
Summary: When the Resistance took General Hux prisoner, an accident caused him to lose his all his memories. Only Rey has been able to help rebuild his shattered mind, and in the process, begin to lose her heart…





	1. Chapter 1

“What’s your name?”

“Armitage Brendol Hux.”

“Date of birth?”

He stares at the blinking light of the holo camera. The month name comes to him, but they don’t want that, they want numbers. For a moment he grasps it, then it slips away. Numbers are hard.

“Date of birth?” the doctor repeats. She smiles at him kindly. Dr. Kalonia. She, he remembers. He’s seen her often enough in the past few months.

“I’m not sure,” he confesses, looking into the camera lens. He can feel his lips turning up in a nervous smile. The smile is familiar to his face now, he sees it whenever he looks in the mirror in his quarters. _Like me_ , it says. _Please don’t hurt me._ In the holos they’ve shown him of before, he’s always caught somewhere between a sneer and a scowl. He’s attempted to replicate the expression in his mirror, but try as he might, his face refuses to fall that way without the accompanying emotion behind it. Distaste—that’s it. General Hux was a man who found most things distasteful. Except for genocide, as he’s reminded almost daily here.

“Any part of it? The day, perhaps? Or year?” she presses.

“No.” He’s trembling and his vision darkens at the edges. Maybe one of his fits is coming on. He hasn’t had one for some time now. Beside him, Rey reaches out and takes his hand gently in hers. He can feel how clammy his is as she squeezes, her fingers strong and warm. 

“It’s alright, Bren,” she says softly, and he clutches at her. Only she calls him Bren, the name he chose when Armitage didn’t seem to suit, and Hux was the name of a monster.

“What’s the name of your home planet?” Dr. Kalonia asks. 

“Arkanis.” Rey showed him holos of the city where he grew up. It was rainy and grey and depressed him. He likes it much better here at the base, where the sun shines almost every day and there are trees and colourful birds to look at outside his window. And Rey is here. She told him she grew up in the desert, so she loves the trees and the green, too. 

“Do you remember how old you are, Mr. Hux?”

Bren manages to control the flinch—both from the ‘mister,’ which feels wrong, and the ‘Hux,’ which is a name he’d like to forget more than anything else. It’s deliberate; they’ve explained how calling him by his old name might help bring his memories back. He can’t quite get the courage to tell them that he’d much rather forget his old self entirely.

“Thirty-five?” He’s practiced that number so much, tried to hold it steady in his mind when everything else is fuzzy and the sound of his own thoughts is blurred like he’s listening to them underwater.

“Good.” The doctor makes a note on her datapad. 

Rey draws her hand away from his and he can’t think of an excuse to grab it back. 

  


* * *

  


Rey walks Bren back to his room after Dr. Kalonia runs out of questions. It’s a cell really, locked from the outside, and he can only leave it with an escort. But the space is his, he’s not watched when he’s inside it—at least, that’s what they’ve told him—and he has a big window and his own refresher. A small closet holds his few changes of clothing and Rey gave him a datapad with books and some holo-films loaded on it so he has something to do in the long hours he’s left alone.

Most people at the base have to share a room, so he’s lucky. Rey also has a private room, though he’s never been invited there. She needs the privacy to meditate for her Jedi training. He imagines her in her room sometimes, maybe sitting cross-legged on the floor with her eyes closed, one of the little stones she carries in her pocket floating in the air in front of her. She showed him once, how she could levitate objects, or pull something toward her, or push it away. He’d be happy to sit and watch her meditate for hours, her face peaceful and soft. 

“Come in for a minute?” he offers, when she’s keyed in the code and placed her palm carefully on the sensor to unlock his door.

“I can’t right now, but I’ll come get you for lunch in a couple hours, all right?” She half-smiles up at him, she’s standing so close and he can feel that stupid smile on his face again. “You’re doing well, Bren, much better today than last week.”

“I felt a bit funny when I tried to think about the numbers again,” he says, just to keep her here for another minute.

She looks concerned. “You should have told Dr. Kalonia. I’ll mention it to her later.”

“It was only for a moment.” _When you touched my hand it was better,_ he wants to say, but bites his tongue hard to keep the words inside. In the beginning, words just fell out of him, whatever he was thinking was on his lips before he could censor himself. He has dim memories of admitting his feelings, of begging her to hold him, of sobbing as he tells her how much he hates General Hux and all he did. But he’s better now, and she is kind enough not to remind him of his weakness. 

“Good,” she says, relieved.

  


* * *

  


At lunch, Bren and Rey sit with Finn and Poe, as usual. Finn used to be a stormtrooper, and served with Bren on the _Finalizer_. Of course, Bren was a General then, and Finn only a combination of letters and numbers that he still can’t fix in his mind, so they never met. Here with the Resistance, Finn is a great hero for defecting. Bren would like to consider himself a defector, would happily hand over any and all secrets to Rey, but his secrets are all gone and he has nothing but his useless self to offer. 

Despite the months of daily meals together, Finn is still wary of him. Once or twice, he’s slipped and called Bren ‘sir.’ Finn has explained a bit about stormtrooper training and reconditioning, his dark brows pulled close together and a bitter frown on his face. Apparently it was Hux’s father who designed the program. Bren had felt the need to apologize to Finn when he learned that, both on his father’s behalf, and his own for perpetuating the cruel system. Finn had nodded slowly, and thanked him. He’d been a bit warmer toward Bren after that, smiling in his friendly way and asking Bren what he’d been reading about.

Poe is the sort of person Bren feels like the old him would have despised. The new him feels inadequate next to the handsome, charismatic pilot. He’d spent weeks burning with jealousy when he thought that Poe was interested in Rey, and the habit was hard to break even after Finn casually mentioned he and Poe were a couple. The worst part is, Poe is unfailingly polite and kind, never making Bren feel like an unwelcome prisoner, even when conversations are inevitably curtailed by his presence.

Bren is a security risk. Keeping him here at the base makes it a juicy target for the First Order, if they were able to figure out where he was. He can’t be allowed to know more than the bare minimum about the Resistance in case he gets stolen back. The idea gives him nightmares for two reasons. First, that he would be separated from Rey, cast adrift from his one anchor; and second, that he would probably be put to death for having no use to the First Order now that his mind is broken. So he’s kept locked up and no one talks about anything important when he’s around. Truthfully they don’t know what to do with him. That’s becoming increasingly obvious as the days tick by.

Most people avoid him, even if they’ve reluctantly accepted that Rey is telling the truth when she says his memories are gone because of the accident. The parts of him she’s painstakingly pieced back together don’t add up to General Armitage Hux of the First Order, scourge of the galaxy. He’s just nervous, smiley Bren, who sits quietly in his room reading, who eats all his meals with the only three people who will talk to him, and who is not very secretly, desperately in love with Rey.

  


* * *

  


Days smear together here, sometimes one day lasts forever, then several rush past him before he can turn his head to look. Rey is his constant, though sometimes Finn comes to get him for meals if she’s training. He misses her all the time they’re apart.

He’s sure that General Hux was never so clingy, Hux probably never loved anyone. The file they gave him on himself was very thin on information though, so maybe he had. Finn told him that he was respected by the troops and officers on his ship. He wonders sometimes if he spent his evenings drinking and talking in the officer’s lounge with his senior staff. Rey gave him all their files too, in the hopes he might remember something. None of them looked like they had ever cracked a smile, much less sat around chatting amicably. Ironically, it’s possible that he was just as alone then as he is now.

Every few days he has a session with Rey to try to retrieve more of himself. Right after the accident, it was daily. That time is a sick blur of nausea and shadows that loomed over him. Rey was the only person he was able to recognize from day to day. She spent hours with him, slowly putting him back together. The past few sessions have brought little new to light, only solidifying what he knew before. 

Today, she takes him outside. It’s warm and the air smells damp and fresh from a light shower in the morning. She tries to take him out every day, but she’s so busy and no one else is trusted to do it. They’re silent until her lightsaber bumps against his hip as they walk.

“Can I see your lightsaber?” he asks.

She halts abruptly. His heart leaps up to his mouth and he’s ready to apologize, wishes he’d never asked such a thing. Of course she can’t let him hold a deadly weapon, much less her own personal one. He’s read the old stories of the Jedi, how their lightsaber was a part of them.

“All right,” she says, to his surprise.

The hilt is heavier than he expected, and slightly warm from the touch of her body. He carefully presses the button to turn it on, and a crystal-blue blade hums to life. The blade is strange in its weightlessness and the way it shines in the afternoon light. For a moment he is reminded of something: _red_ flashes through his mind accompanied by a spike of annoyance. He twists his wrist and swishes the blade back and forth. The air resists a little, but it essentially feels like nothing, an absence.

Rey is watching him, her face serious. He closes down the blade. The ensuing quiet is heavy, despite the cries of birds in the trees. She takes the hilt from him as he murmurs a _thanks_. 

They settle on the soft ground, springy grass keeping them dry. She reaches out with both hands and takes his. This is the best and most awful part. It’s perfect, because he’s close to her and they’re touching. And it’s hell, because she’s in his head and she sees _everything_.

She works with him on numbers, getting him to count out loud as she feeds him the words and ideas. He tries, but the concepts won’t stand still long enough for him to grasp them, and he’s distracted by her hands and how she knows he’s thinking about how much he wants her. It’s excruciatingly embarrassing. Every little thought he has about her is determined to bubble up and force itself to her notice. From the way the sun is lighting up her beautiful face to his little fantasies about pulling her down onto the warm grass below them, he can’t hide anything from her.

“Bren,” she says finally, after he’s stopped trying to count altogether, just trying to control his breathing and blank his mind. General Hux would not be this needy or lacking in self-discipline.

“I’m sorry.” He considers pulling his hands away and getting up. But he can’t. Not when he has the chance to sit close to her.

She sighs and squeezes his hands. But instead of letting go, she’s pulling him closer. Their eyes are glued together, then hers drop to look at his mouth. Time stretches out in an achingly long moment. Then, their lips meet. Hers are soft and move gently against his. She tastes of warm sunlight and home. He can’t breathe, unsure if this is real. She cups his cheek, stroking the beard he’s been growing to change his face to match the new, messier person he’s become.

Hesitantly, he puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her closer, deepening their kiss. Their tongues touch and he can’t hold back a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a groan. An absurd thought occurs to him: this is a skill he didn’t know he had. He’s definitely done this before; his body remembers, even if his mind does not.

She must sense his thought, because her breath hitches and he can feel a puff of air from her nose against his cheek. She pulls away. “I have to go away for a few days.” 

It takes him a moment to understand. She spoke quickly, the words tumbling over each other. 

Oh. She’d meant no more than a friendly goodbye kiss, and like a fool, he had his tongue down her throat before she could protest.

She laughs. “Friends don’t kiss each other goodbye like that, Bren.” Her eyes are sparkling and her cheeks are flushed. For the first time he sees that she is embarrassed too, that her smile can be as nervous and hesitant as his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Greek mythology, Lethe was one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the river of unmindfulness, the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified.
> 
> Special thanks to my beta [Rachel_Greatest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rachel_greatest/pseuds/rachel_greatest) \- check out her page for more Reyux!
> 
> Comments and kudos are very welcome :) I'm [@isharan](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/isharan) on Tumblr - come talk to me!


	2. Chapter 2

Finn collects him later for dinner, Rey having already left. Bren is still buzzing as he stares down at his plate, trying to hide the smile that wants to split his face in two. She _kissed_ him. She _meant_ it _._ His whole world has shifted to accommodate this new knowledge.

“Not hungry?” Poe asks him after a few minutes.

Bren startles and looks up. He picks up his fork and tries to cover his joy with a mouthful of some unidentifiable meat stew.

“Something got into you?” Finn ventures cautiously. It’s not the first time the three of them have eaten alone together without Rey, but her presence eases things. In her absence, conversation is stilted and they eat mostly in silence.

“Reykissedme,” Bren blurts. He claps his hand over his traitorous mouth, but a small giggle escapes. General Hux would be recoiling in horror at this juvenile display.

“Rey kissed you,” Poe repeats slowly, eyebrows raised as he looks for Bren’s confirmation. 

Bren nods jerkily, too many times in a row.

Finn and Poe exchange a glance. “She told you the truth, then?” Finn’s expression is caught between concern and something else. Fear? Excitement?

He nods again. _Friends don’t kiss each other goodbye like that._ She _likes_ him. Loves him maybe. When she returns, they’ll have so much to talk about. He can’t wait.

“You aren’t … upset?” Poe is watching his face very carefully.

“Why would I be upset?”

“You lost so much. I mean, it’s not much of a loss to the galaxy”—Finn pauses as Poe gives him a dirty look—“but I’m surprised you’re so accepting.”

Bren isn’t sure why they’re talking about that now, he’d much rather talk about how wonderful Rey is and pump them for anything she’s said about him. “I’m happier here,” he confesses. “I don’t think I was this happy before. I can’t have been.” He smiles at them both in reassurance. The memories don’t matter, not if Rey is going to be with him. 

“I’m glad you’re happy.” Poe smiles and lifts his glass. “To forgiveness then, and to the future.”

  


* * *

  


Time jumps around so much it’s hard to pin down how long Rey has been gone. Bren carefully examines the calendar in his datapad and the marked days of her absence, counting them again and again. The numbers up to ten flow easily enough, but after that it gets confusing and he can’t remember the final number he reaches or where it sits in relation to anything else. It’s more than a few though. A few is … well. Not many. And it’s been many. Long enough for him to see Dr. Kalonia more than once. 

Finn starts to wince every time he asks when Rey is coming back. “Soon,” is a word that Bren comes to dislike very much. 

One day at lunch, Poe isn’t there. The canteen is quite empty of the usual crowd of pilots, so Bren guesses a major sortie is taking place. Finn is on edge, fiddling with his cutlery and pushing his food around his plate. 

Bren forces himself not to ask about Rey, though now his question has turned from when Rey will come back to—is she in danger? But his Rey is precious not only to him, he reminds himself. A Jedi is special, irreplaceable. The Resistance will be careful with her, they won’t put her in unnecessary danger, even to win a battle. 

He’s taken to calling her _his_ in his mind, even knowing she’ll hear it when she comes back. A secret thrill goes through him when he imagines her eyes widening and a slow smile curving her lips. She wants to belong to someone just as much as he does. They both have so little that having each other will be everything.

While they’re eating, Finn’s wrist comlink chirps. As he studies the readout, he seems to shrink in on himself and his face shutters closed. “You’ll want to be back in your quarters,” he says. Bren nods, and shoves the last bite of food in his mouth.

“Poe?” he asks, as they trot back to his room.

Finn shakes his head. “Don’t know yet.”

Some things Bren still understands perfectly. Like how the face of the enemy is an unwelcome sight when friends have died. And how it feels to be a target. They’re only a few meters from his door when they meet a small group of pilots in the corridor. The pilots are in a sorry state—disheveled and exhausted, a couple with charred marks on their flight suits. A pall of bitter defeat hangs over them.

The leader is a stocky human male named Ferrin. Bren has always given him a wide berth, sensing his dislike. He asked Poe about it once—Ferrin had family on Hosnian Prime. More than one person on the base did. It’s surprisingly easy to be ashamed of something you had no part in; Bren is happy to take the weight of guilt from his former self. Someone should.

That’s why, when Ferrin is suddenly shouting in his face about butchery and murder and genocide, Bren doesn’t say the words that sit squashed under the burden he’s taken up: _It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that. I don’t want to hurt anyone._ Of these, only the third is true, and maybe not entirely, because it seems like his body remembers how to fight.

Of course, he would have been trained in hand-to-hand combat at the Academy. Maybe he was even good at it, despite his slight build and lack of muscle. His hand knows how to grab a man’s wrist, stopping the fist that was heading for his face, and twist it _just so_ , leaving cracked bones and shrieks of pain in its wake. 

The other three line up to take their shot—maybe this is something everyone has been waiting for. A chance at him, or at General Hux anyway.

Finn stands awkwardly to the side and he’s shouting, but Bren can’t hear. His world has narrowed to the green, pointy-toothed grin of the Twi’lek squaring up to him. He grabs one of her flexible lekku, yanking down sharply to smash her nose on the top of his knee. Throws her to the side. The next is a human woman, shorter than he is, but thick with muscle. He stomps on her foot as she looks about to try something fancy with a kick. Aims a swift kick of his own at her rigid knee and she topples right over.

Finn takes hold of his arm and he’s pulling Bren back, but Bren’s blood is up now and he shakes him off. An Abednedo male is hovering uncertainly behind the groaning bodies of his friends. Bren charges him, slamming a fist into one prominent eye, high up on the right side of his long face. The Abednedo staggers back, howling. Bren is reaching for one of the flaps of skin that hangs by his soft mouth, ready to do some _real_ damage when all of a sudden Poe is there and he and Finn each take hold of Bren’s arms and he can’t do anything except writhe against them.

He realizes he’s shouting: _It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,_ and he shuts his mouth with a snap, teeth clacking together. Abruptly, the corridor is silent. Stinging pain blooms in his fingers as he notices his knuckles are split. A quick catalogue of his body doesn’t reveal any further injury except pain in his arms where Poe and Finn have a firm grip.

Ferrin wobbles to his feet, cradling his broken wrist. “You should be grateful she fucked up your head,” he spits. “We’d have carved you up by now otherwise. Every being here wants a piece of you. _Mister Hux._ ” His face contorts in disgust. “How are _you_ alive when they’re all dead?”

Ferrin makes a shambling move toward him and Poe holds out an arm to ward him off. “Come on, man. This isn’t right. Let it be.”

“ _Something_ isn’t right here. The General will be hearing about how he attacked us. Seems our meek little Mr. Hux remembers a few things after all.” Ferrin helps his fellows up and they limp off, half carrying the woman with the dislocated knee.

The rage drains from Bren’s bones and he can hardly hold his own weight up. He half stumbles, half falls onto the wall by his door. If he’d only taken the hit, crouched and begged and allowed himself to be beaten to a pulp by Ferrin, that might have been enough for the others. They had the right to their anger, it was worth more than he was. But he didn’t take his punishment like he was supposed to. He had the audacity to defend himself. Turns out he isn’t so happy to atone for General Hux’s actions. Not at all.

The humiliation of waiting for his cell to be unlocked for him burns brighter than usual. He doesn’t look at Poe or Finn, even though they follow him into his small room. Instead, he pitches himself face first on the bed, a sob ready to climb out his throat, tears already wetting his eyes. He’s ruined everything. Everything. He’ll be taken back to his old cell, that tiny barren box. Probably put him on trial for assault. No doubt they’ll find a way to give him the death penalty he so richly deserves, now that the new version of him has done something worthy of punishment.

And Rey. Rey will be so disappointed in him. She’ll be angry that he hurt people, hurt her friends. She’ll—

Wait.

Ferrin said something. _She fucked up your head._

He turns his face to where the two men stand by the door. He focuses on Poe’s knees, the scarlet red of his flight suit, the grey straps that hang down by his hips. “What did he mean? ‘She fucked up your head.’ ”

Poe shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “Like Rey told you, man. When she took your memories. You know, the accident.”

The accident. When Rey took his memories.

He repeats the words again in his head several times, turning them around in case he’s misunderstanding. Sometimes the simplest of statements takes a minute or two to decipher. He sits up.

“Rey … took … my memories?” He tries the words out loud. In the quiet calm of his room they float in the temperature controlled air. Slumped on the bed as he is, his eyes are level with Finn and Poe’s chests. They inhale sharply in concert.

“But—” Poe elbows Finn, and he falls silent.

“He doesn’t know,” Poe tells Finn fiercely.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“She said she’d tell him before she did anything.”

“Well, obviously, she didn’t.”

“Shit.”

Bren dares a glance up at their faces. Poe is chewing his lip nervously and Finn is staring at him, at a clear loss for what to do.

“Rey took my memories,” Bren says again, just to be sure.

“It was an accident.” Finn’s voice is a little too loud for the room. He seems angry, like he’s been accused of something.

“Dr. Kalonia said there was a crash.” He runs a hand down his leg. A thin, pinkish scar crawls up over his knee to bisect his thigh from where they had to cut him open and rebuild shattered bone. Or was that a lie, too? A ringing in his ears makes it hard to focus.

“There was,” Poe says gently. “That’s how you were captured. Your shuttle was shot down and you were injured.”

He’s been told this much before. Impatient, he waves this to the side. “But that wasn’t how I lost my memory?”

“No.”

“Just tell me.” He lowers his head, vision swimming, dark shapes threatening at the corner of his eyes. Not a fit. Not now.

“She didn’t want to do it.” Finn still sounds angry. “They didn’t give her a choice.”

“She was ready to do what was necessary,” Poe corrects him.

“You, out of anyone, should understand—” Finn hisses.

Bren clenches his fists. His knuckles burn. “ _What_ was necessary?”

“She was forced to—”

“—asked to—”

“— _told_ to read your mind.” Finn glares at Poe, whose face is stony. “She didn’t know what she was doing. No one ever taught her anything. You … resisted. Something went wrong.”

“Wrong.” The darkness across his eyes is a seething mass now, sparking stars that fall and fall in a sheet of buzzing static.

“She was so sorry,” he hears from far away. “So sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the angst! Sorry for the slow update - the next chapter is done already, so I will post it next week probably, or sooner if I get the following one finished.
> 
> Special thanks to my beta [Rachel_Greatest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rachel_greatest/pseuds/rachel_greatest) \- check out her page for more Reyux!
> 
> Comments and kudos are very welcome :) I'm [@isharan](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/isharan) on Tumblr - come talk to me!


	3. Chapter 3

Bren wakes up in the infirmary, a cuff around his wrist securing him to the bed, monitors quietly beeping beside him. The room smells of bacta, and the soft warmth of outside. A window must be open somewhere.

Dr. Kalonia stands by the bed, looking down at him with concern. “Mr. Hux, how do you feel?”

He shakes his head, only for the swarm of static to reappear. After a couple breaths, his vision clears again. He curls his fingers and the skin stretches easily. It’s been a few hours then, if the bacta has had a chance to heal his split knuckles.

He wets his lips, can feel that nervous smile growing. “All right. A bit dizzy.”

She consults the monitors beside him. “You had a fit, but your brain activity is mostly normal again.”

The cuff rattles when he moves his arm and he looks down at it. The doctor purses her lips. “I’m afraid that security insisted on it.”

The privacy curtain twitches as someone pulls on it. “May I come in?” a woman asks from the other side.

“Certainly, General.” 

Dr. Kalonia nods to the woman as she enters, then leaves the two of them alone. The woman is short, in her later middle years with a strong face that would have been beautiful when she was younger. Her greying brown hair is caught up in an elaborate hairstyle that doesn’t match the utilitarian jumpsuit she wears.

This must be General Leia Organa. His counterpart. “General Hux.” Noting his wince, she asks, “You prefer something else?”

“I’m no general,” he mumbles. 

“We’ve met before. Do you remember?” Her dark eyes are a little sad. From what Rey’s told him, Leia Organa should carry the sorrow of dying stars on her small shoulders. But her expression is sharp, and even though he’s lying down, his spine stiffens instinctively.

“No.”

“Ah, it was before the accident.” She watches carefully as he flinches.

“Finn and Poe said Rey…” He can’t bring himself to say it again. _She broke me_ , he thinks, and for a second, it almost seems like the general heard him.

“So, you remember that much.”

“Yes.”

“I ordered her to do it. She didn’t want to. But you were a general of the First Order, you knew everything. You understand?”

He supposes he does. It would make sense to exploit a resource like that, no matter the risk. Perhaps Rey had also been at risk. If he could be broken, perhaps she could have been too?

She takes his silence as assent. “Finn told me what happened in the hallway. Ferrin attacked you. Things got a little confusing after that.”

He thinks back, but only flashes of pointy teeth and groans of pain remain. 

“Ferrin says you attacked the three others with him, unprovoked.” Those pointy teeth seem aggressive in his foggy memory, but he isn’t sure. “You certainly did some damage.”

“I can’t remember.” His voice is small, apologetic.

She sighs. “I don’t know what to do with you. You don’t know anything useful, but as long as we hold you, the First Order is holding its breath. We’ve been bluffing for months now; they must be concluding that you’re either dead, or haven’t given up anything important. Every day you’re here puts us in danger, but we can’t let you go.”

“I’m sorry,” is the only thing Bren can think to say. They should kill him and return his body to the First Order. A simple solution, an elegant one. He doesn’t suggest it.

“Finn spoke up for you. He said you were defending yourself. There were four of them, and one of you.” Her mouth twists. “I’d like to have you on our side, Mr. Hux. I bet you’re handy with a blaster, too.”

So Finn spoke up for him. He wouldn’t have expected that. “I’d like to be on your side. I hate the First Order, what they’ve done.” Those dark eyes see too much and he can’t meet her gaze. He looks down and away, fiddles with the cuff.

She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’re just a lost boy, aren’t you?” she murmurs. 

  


* * *

  


They release Bren later that evening after he’s eaten dinner in the infirmary and Dr. Kalonia has given him the all-clear. Finn turns up to escort him back to his room. The hallway has been cleaned up, any traces of blood removed. His room has been tidied too, the covers on the bed smoothed down, his datapad placed neatly on the small desk.

Finn doesn’t come into the room with him, instead hovering in the doorway. “I’ll come get you in the morning. Dr. Kalonia wants to see you after breakfast.” He’s eager to go, clearly not wanting to be drawn into conversation.

Bren turns out the lights in the room as soon as the door closes, and heads to look out the window. In the early evening, two fat moons fill the sky, hanging above the treetops. It’s his favourite time of day, looking at their friendly faces. One is silvery lavender, always in the shadow of its bright orange twin. Together they bathe his dark, quiet room in shadows of washed out burnt-purple. Tonight it’s almost too late to see them, he has to stand to one side and crane his neck to catch a glimpse as they travel away from him on their nightly journey.

After washing the hospital scent from his skin in the sonic, he climbs into his lonely bed. He likes to read before sleeping, but the datapad doesn’t tempt him for once. A positive effect of his amnesia is that all stories are new again, though sometimes they seem familiar. Perhaps the stories we tell are passed into us by our mothers, slumbering deep inside our bones, just waiting to be awakened by reminders of love or courage or despair.

He lies awake a long time. Usually, he would think of Rey, shy thoughts of holding her close, burying his nose in her hair and listening to her slow breaths. But now, all he can think of is how her face would have looked as she came to him, ready to take who he was. Had she been pale and cold with dread, all watery eyes and jelly knees? Or was her chin set in determination, eyes narrowed in hatred of her sneering enemy? 

He mustn’t forget General Hux’s distaste of anything and everything. Was that how he had viewed the proposed mental expedition? With distaste? Or was he afraid, hands shoved tight under his legs to hide their trembling, a roiling sickness in his gut as he looked at the woman who would _know_ him? 

She was so sorry, Poe had said. Did her face collapse in horror as she realized what she’d done? That he was broken for good? How could she look him in the eye, and not _tell_ him? How could any of them talk about _the accident_ , and not give anything away. Not a hint. 

Bren owes his current existence to an accident. In his file, a rumour was noted that he was the bastard son of Commandant Brendol Hux and an unknown woman. If it’s true, the irony is bitter. He’s an accident twice-over, always unwanted and alone, as he imagined General Hux to be. 

The grey light of dawn is creeping through his blinds as he still tosses and turns, unable to settle his churning thoughts. Finally, he succumbs to exhaustion and sleeps.

  


* * *

  


The next morning when he and Finn arrive at breakfast, silence falls over the room. Ferrin is sitting at a table near the back of the room, facing the door, and he stares as Bren makes his way to the self-serve food area. Dozens of eyes are glued to his back like laser sights lighting him up; a brilliant red target. The space between his shoulder blade itches and itches. He has new regrets to be responsible for, more violent actions he cannot remember.

It’s only when he’s sitting at the usual table with Finn and Poe that he is able to relax a little and notice how bare the room is. How many had they lost the day before? More than the First Order had, if the general sense of gloom around them was any guide.

Finn and Poe are quiet, looking down at their food. Poe has a bacta patch above one eye, and his face is drawn and grey. Finn sits closer to him than normal, their upper arms brushing against each other occasionally. 

Bren wants to ask when Rey will be back, even if his hopes are dust in his mouth. _Friends don’t kiss like that._ No. They’re not friends. She’s his enemy, always has been in one form or another. A sinking sensation in his chest pulls at him. He doesn’t have the energy to hate, isn’t sure he has hatred anywhere in him. General Hux probably used it all up, pouring it into his fanatical speeches and civilian massacres.

Opposite him, Finn raises his head and looks behind Bren to the door. He smiles at someone, his face softening with affection. Bren swivels in his chair to look. An older man stands in the doorway, wearing simple beige robes and a dull brown-grey cloak. He isn’t tall, and his bearded face isn’t particularly notable, but his presence commands attention. In fact, Bren is so busy examining him and wondering who he might be that it takes a moment for him to see Rey hovering beside the man.

She’s looking right at Bren, and her brow is furrowed in a way he knows means she is worrying about something. About him. He half rises, and the muscles in his face are twitching as they try to settle themselves into an expression, without knowing what it should be.

The man turns to her and says something Bren can’t hear. She nods, and they turn to go.

Bren stands up, pushing away from the table. The scrape of his chair across the floor is loud above the subdued chatter in the room. 

She doesn’t look back at the sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was a bit short! Next time we'll be switching to Rey's POV and finding out a bit more how Hux lost his memories. :)
> 
> Special thanks to my beta [Rachel_Greatest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rachel_greatest/pseuds/rachel_greatest) \- check out her page for more Reyux!
> 
> Comments and kudos are very welcome :) I'm [@isharan](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/isharan) on Tumblr - come talk to me!


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